The following invention relates to a timekeeping device and, in particular, to a timepiece having a visual design that allows sight-impaired individuals to read the time accurately from the timepiece.
Analog timepieces have been in use for hundreds of years, but are particularly ill-suited for poor sighted individuals and for normal sighted individuals under circumstances of poor illumination, or where it is desired to tell time with a quick glance. Typically, analog timepieces include a housing divided into segments with time intervals designated around the periphery and synchronized with the rotation of "hands" that point to a specific hour and/or minute. In order to achieve maximum accuracy, the hands of analog timepieces are often slender and difficult to discern by poorly sighted individuals or by normal sighted individuals under poor lighting conditions. Thus, poor sighted individuals have difficulty reading traditional analog timepieces because of the narrowness of the time indicators or hands even when studying the device for a long period of time. The same is true of normal sighted individuals under poorly lighted conditions. The traditional analog timepieces are therefore completely ineffective for allowing poor sighted individuals to quickly and accurately determine the time, and for allowing normal sighted individuals to tell the time quickly and accurately under poorly lighted conditions.
Digital timepieces, especially wristwatches, likewise do not allow poor sighted individuals to accurately tell the time quickly, accurately or easily. The numbers displayed on digital wristwatches are small and may be difficult to read, even for those without sight problems. In addition, some of the numbers displayed in a typical digital timepiece are easily confused. For example, the numbers 3, 5 and 8 can be similar in appearance in a typical digital display. A poor sighted individual could easily mistake one of those numbers for another with a quick glance, and often cannot precisely determine differences in numerals even with a prolonged look at the face of the timepiece.
While timepieces that utilize color and/or design variation are well known in the industry, there is no product that provides a reliable indicator of time for sight-impaired persons. Lorello, U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,864 uses color to indicate precise minutes, either before or after the hour. Radal, U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,522 discloses a timepiece that utilizes color to optically suppress all information not necessary to reading the time, but the color employed in Radal does not relate to time interval identification at all. Maue, U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,592 discloses a timepiece that utilizes color to aid in the identification of time intervals. McMahon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,588 discloses a watch face that identifies the hour by an aperture which displays a different color for each time interval, and requires the user to learn or memorize the various different colors for each interval.
Horzick, U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,831 discloses overlaid translucent rotary dial disks that indicate time increments by a continually expanding zone of either light or darker color. The boundaries of the regions of darker or lighter colors are ambiguous, however, and it is difficult to tell the time accurately.